


there's someone i'm waiting for

by slytherinmayflower



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Canonical Character Death, Dark-ish Josie, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, In the unhealthy way, It's honestly a problem, Jealous!Josie, Memory Loss, Relationship Issues, Sibling Rivalry, The Twins are in a Bad Place, Unresolved Emotional Tension, everyone loves hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-28 18:29:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19399906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slytherinmayflower/pseuds/slytherinmayflower
Summary: Post-1x16(While massively ignoring a lot of plot threads and focusing mostly on Hope and her effect on certain characters!)Hope is in Malivore, everyone's got a feeling something is missing but no one more than the twins; who are definitely in a Bad Place™ while trying to parse through all of their feelings about it.





	there's someone i'm waiting for

**Author's Note:**

> Okay - so the formatting on this is not great and kind of jumps POVs a bit between Lizzie and Josie but it's good enough and I want to stop staring at it so I'm posting it. :) 
> 
> There's not a lot of Hizzie but there's a substantial enough amount of it to excuse the tag-use; and honestly, Hizzie is such an important feature of Josie and Lizzie's relationship that it bears tagging regardless. Like Hope has a huge impact on the way they interact and treat each other that it honestly blows my mind a little. This is slightly more sympathetic (and biased) towards Lizzie than Josie, because honestly the last few episodes (particularly 1x14) of Josie just shirking all the blame for all their relationship issues on Lizzie was super fucked - and I'm hoping it all gets properly addressed in the new season instead of being kind of brushed over because ooh near-death experience heals all things!
> 
> So in the realm of them still having unresolved issues: there are plenty! They're both surprisingly vindictive and bitter towards each other. Like ouch.
> 
> Also, Landon is like...mentioned...but very glossed over. Oops.
> 
> Anyway, let me know what you think.
> 
> Title:  
> "Police man says 'Son, you can't stay here'  
> I said 'Someone I'm waiting for if it's a day, a month, a year'  
> Gotta stand my ground even if it rains or snows  
> If she changes her mind, this is the first place she will go"  
> \- The Man Who Can't Be Moved, The Script

Hope Mikaelson throws herself into a pit of pure evil and Lizzie’s whole world breaks open.

Malivore steals the life from people; leeches it out of them, carves their existence out of the fabric of the universe and hides it away so efficiently that the only relics of them are physical and easily lost. It sucks the memories from every person who has ever known them and leaves them forgotten and alone in the well of the dark.

It is a death unlike any other – permanent in a way few things are.

Hope doesn’t exist.

She didn’t die because she didn’t live; she didn’t live because no one remembers.

Well. Almost no one.

-

_They_ remember.

Not her name or her face or _her_ exactly –

But the colour of her eyes, the sadness of her being, the kindness that leaked from every pore –

-

It doesn’t click at first.

They’re little things – small habits that could be attributed to literally anything – to her fear of Triad in their school, to her missing Penelope – but slowly little things build up.

Josie drifts through the corridors like she’s caught in a tide; going where it pulls and every time she wanders the halls she looks up, expecting to see… _something_.

Someone.

She sits with her friends at lunch and catches herself turning at every joke, looking to someone who’s not there.

She wanders down to the docks and swears she can hear people training; fighting and yet when she stumbles across her dad teaching Lizzie something with fighting sticks it just feels _wrong_.

She thought it might just be missing Penelope; this person who’s had so much sway over her, who’s been such a part of her life – her first _love_ , the person she’s still in love with – will probably always be in love with – and yet she knows that’s not quite it because Lizzie feels it too; they all do.

Rafael is hiding out in the woods but Josie hears him howling at night; the wolf calling out to its pack, the long pauses in between breaths heavy with the feeling of hopeless waiting; with the knowledge that there’ll be no reply.

MG casts his eyes around the room at every superhero joke, at every Marvel reference, searching out someone to share in the nerdiness with him and yet no matter whose eyes he catches, he keeps looking.

Landon is quietly adrift; back to being confused about so many things the way he was when he first arrived; searching for reassurance and finding himself falling short of it.

Jed slowly reintegrates himself to the wolves, acting as a beta until Rafael can be himself again and yet Josie can see it – that strangeness – when the wolves are out on the full moon. They’re merry and delighted; _free_ in a way and reunited with their alpha in the night, but they linger – they lurk on one side of the woods, never crossing over like there’s some boundary that keeps them there. She asks Jed about it but all he can tell her is it’s not _theirs_ the way the rest of the woods are.

They’re little things that build and build upon each other; that make no real sense but fit together so easily – circle around the abstract, around what’s missing until Josie can almost make out the negative space – the person who’s supposed to tether them all to each other.

Nothing fills up the negative space of _missing_ like Lizzie does.

The way she feels it is different – not quite a behaviour (though there’s plenty of those too) but a _feeling_ , so overwhelming, so tangible – so undeniable.

It sizzles in Josie’s chest, heavy and dark, reverberating through her and rattling her bones like a prisoner begging to break free. It’s an ocean storm, swirling and relentless, waves pulling and crashing and drowning. It’s a shadow – looming and cold and cloying; suffocating.

Yet for all the strangeness, the intensity of it, Josie knows the feeling, knows that it’s stronger, but more of the same.

It’s that feeling – like drowning or being buried alive – the knowledge that there’s no way to escape, that this is your last stand, that resistance is futile and every breath you take is one step closer to everything you’ve been desperate to escape; to everything you’ve wanted to avoid; to an inevitable end –

It’s hopelessness.

Dark and convoluted and consuming, overwhelming hopelessness.

It’s the way Josie felt that day in the cemetery before Penelope and MG found her.

It’s the way Lizzie feels whenever she thinks about herself; whenever she comes out of a meltdown.

It’s the way they feel together now; the Merge looming over every interaction, lingering at the back of their minds every moment they spend together.

It’s familiar and agonising and yet –

It’s different, Josie thinks, feeling it hum inside her like a physical thing. There’s an urge to rub her chest as if it could possibly dissipate it and she climbs into Lizzie’s bed that night, cuddling up to her and feeling the jolt of her shoulders as she hugs Lizzie to her chest.

She sobs quietly, like she’s ashamed of her sadness, like she’s confused by it and Josie hums to the rhythm it sparks in their bond; feeling as it hides itself away, Lizzie drifting into restless dreams.

-

They get up the next morning in silence and Josie looks – _sees_ for the first time in days –

For as long as she’s been feeling it, Lizzie’s been feeling it too and yet somehow Josie hadn’t noticed the signs in her the way she had in everyone else.

Some part of her whispers that there shouldn’t really be any, that it shouldn’t affect Lizzie the way it does her – like she has some greater stake in this than Lizzie could ever imagine and yet –

Looking at her; there’s so many.

Lizzie brings two coffees to their table in the morning without noticing, sets her own down in front of her and the other off to the side; laden with sugar and cream and all the things she’s loathe to consume so early in the morning, it sits until it goes cold, waiting just like Lizzie seems to be; looking up every time someone enters a room, expectant.

She’s leaving spaces beside her; that coveted space on the side Josie doesn’t occupy; at lunch, at breakfast, during class, in the library.

She walks a different way back to their room, always making sure to pass the empty room at the end of the hall; always hovering there like she means to knock but can’t quite find reason enough to do so.

She takes to spending long hours in the library, sitting on the far end of a two-seater couch she’s always hated, angled towards the other end with her eyes darting up sporadically as she carves her way through the stockpiles; massive books about werewolves and vampires and the Mikaelsons consumed within hours of opening. She powers through them with a kind of mindless determination and she lies – and Josie _knows_ she’s lying – that every page turned is an effort to help Rafael.

That’s not to mention the strange pauses; long, drawn out breaths in all of their group conversations where Lizzie stops as if to let someone cut across her. There’s an edge to her bitchiness with everyone else; like she’s expecting someone to even her out, to measure up to her that way and is floundering without them to focus her.

Even Josie can’t quite temper her the way she used to; like in the time they’ve been apart Lizzie’s found someone new to anchor her and is drifting without them even with Josie back on her side.

They angle themselves – Lizzie always carefully adjusting her position until she’s just that bit distanced from anyone else always leaving space, carefully curated for another person –

But there isn’t anyone.

-

Unless, she thinks, there was.

-

Unless there _is_.

-

_We will find her._

_She’s alive._

_Everything will be fine._

-

Sometimes she thinks she sees her.

She’s certain it is a _her_ now, weeks into this – this person they know exists somewhere but can’t for the life of them name.

Knows it from the glimpse of blue that comes to mind – (like sapphire and cobalt; blue like sadness and bravery; like guilt and responsibility; blue like the bluest eyes she’s ever seen, the saddest eyes she’s ever known) – when she pulls a sobbing Lizzie off one of their mother’s dresses; carefully altered to a fit neither of them could fill.

Knows it from the feeling that curls inside of her during class – when she reaches out to siphon and finds herself comparing the feeling of her classmate’s hands to the ones she half-expects to fill the space; soft and warm, powerful and familiar – hands she knows she’s held and yet couldn’t possibly have.

Knows it from the guilty way she turns away from the locked door of the empty room at the end of their dorm-hall; quietly ashamed and yet entirely guiltless.

She thinks she sees her in all those moments; in those pauses and those feelings and that space –

In the corner of her eye; the image of a girl with the softest smile and the saddest eyes –

Her name hovers at the tip of her tongue; like something she’s said a thousand times and yet something she’ll never get enough of – it’s a feeling…a thought…

She curls her tongue around the letters; feels the weight of them sitting in her mouth –

“Help, please.”

Lizzie looks up at her, her eyes dull and reddened. She’s ashen and yet somehow flushed; curling in on herself under some terrible burden she struggles to hold up.

The feeling returns when Josie reaches out to her; pounding its way along every nerve in Josie’s body until she can feel it like heavy throbbing bass blitzing her brain; her head aching. She pushes it back towards Lizzie; pulls herself free of it in slow practised movements and sighs as it dissipates – not gone entirely; still clinging to her, but as a remnant now, as a bleed over from Lizzie.

She’s like Atlas crumbling under the weight of the sky, Josie thinks only to pause, unnerved at how it doesn’t fit Lizzie, not like it does –

Josie looks at her and feels the weight of that name choking her; tangling around her lungs like vines and slowly forcing the air from her lungs.

“Josie?” Lizzie mutters and the name falls away.

She scoots across the space between them and curls her hands around Lizzie’s, trying to ground her before she drifts away too.

“Of course I’ll help,” she promises, squeezing her hands, “We’ll figure it all out. It’ll all be fine.”

The words are thick and desolate in her mouth; bitter and acrid. It’s the curdling rank of a lie, the taste overwhelming.

Lizzie doesn’t look at her as she nods, but Josie feels the warm wetness seeping through her shirt as she slumps against her.

“We’ll find her,” she mutters against Josie’s shoulder; her breath a fog of heat in the sudden chill of the air and Josie wonders how she can stand it; the taste that must rot on her tongue, the weight that must coil around her heart.

-

The universe is cold and unforgiving around them; their lies a furious fire in their beings, slowly burning them up from the inside out.

They swear they’ll find her, again and again, as if repetition will spark truth; will alter their words at a fundamental level; as if speaking it into the universe – so cold and uncaring, so indifferent – will force it into existence.

Lizzie wilts against her; her words coated with quiet desperation, with solemn desolation until only Josie’s voice remains.

-

Only one of them is lying.

Only one of them believes.

-

_We will find her._

_She’s alive._

_Everything will be fine._

-

She’s never seen Lizzie so hopeless.

-

Lizzie is afraid at first; there’s a possessive glint in her eye when Josie asks and she clenches her fists, like she’s clutching all these fragile half-dreams to her, safe-guarding them from Josie like if she shares even a whisper of them Josie will destroy them.

It takes prodding and persistence and – Josie guiltily admits – some manipulation, but at last it happens.

They talk.

They talk about _her_ ; about this missing girl.

Josie tells Lizzie all the things she’s noticed; how she must be a werewolf, how she must be blue-eyed and close with them all if she wore their mother’s dress; how she must be powerful if they’ve siphoned from her before, if the wolves are so respectful of her space.

Lizzie doesn’t volunteer any of that kind of information.

There are no clues, no evidence to what Lizzie tells her; everything she tells her is a feeling – a sense of connection that Josie finds she’s almost jealous of.

She talks about _their_ mystery girl and yet Josie is barely included in anything Lizzie mentions about her.

(It occurs to her later, that this is a sign – that _this_ is the evidence, the proof she’s been looking for. That mystery girl was never hers, never _theirs_ – just Lizzie’s.)

Lizzie thinks she’s their friend – something she sighs wistfully over, an expression Josie’s never seen before flickering across her face – someone they were waiting for, for so long and had only just gotten to meet.

She thinks theirs was a novel relationship; full of snark and bitterness. Lizzie thinks they hated each other and Josie can’t stop the flinch that sparks; the guilt that wells in her at the remark.

There’s a glint that forms in Lizzie’s eyes; a kernel of warmth that breathes into life and breathes life _into_ her; brings red hues to her cheeks and blue light into her eyes and animates her.

She looks alive and Lizzie-like for the first time in weeks; gesturing dramatically as she recounts potential avenues for her and mystery girl’s relationship.

She starts slowly building up the details, her words tinged with excitement and drama, her tales growing increasingly ridiculous and gradually incorporating more and more violence and passion as they go on.

Josie tries not to roll her eyes.

-

(Josie tries to ignore how every other line is a string of softly muttered compliments – sweet nothings about the gentle intensity of her eyes, the heat of her stare and the sweetness of her laugh and the soft cadence of her voice as she says Lizzie’s name.)

(Josie tries not to think about how all of them are things that sound more like memories that Lizzie shouldn’t have; – memories that Josie _doesn’t_ have – sweet fragile things that make Lizzie’s voice go gooey and soft in a way that makes Josie’s stomach turn.)

(Josie tries to ignore how much _childhood enemies_ sounds like _childhood sweethearts,_ how _bitter rivals_ sits like _star-crossed lovers_ on Lizzie’s tongue. Tries to ignore how thin the line is between love and hate; how easily _violence_ and _passion_ the way Lizzie talks about it could be _lust_ and _love_.)

( _A body slammed into a wall and pinned_.)

( _A kiss with a fist_.)

-

Josie tells her all her findings and Lizzie offers up her feelings; something quietly vindictive burning inside her at the way Josie flinches at every other word coming out of her mouth.

She tells Josie how connected she feels; how she can almost hear the way she might’ve said Lizzie’s name, how she knows they must have been friends – _feels_ it so intensely that she knows it must be true.

But she doesn’t tell Josie everything.

Or anything really.

-

She doesn’t tell Josie that she knows those eyes she’s talking about but not just because they’re blue or brave or sad.

She knows them for the way they looked at her; how intense they were, how welcoming. She knows them for the lack of fear, for the fire in them that she wanted to be scorched by. She knows them for the simple fact that she knows _her_.

She doesn’t know her name – no matter how badly it claws at her to remember where it’s hidden away inside of her – she doesn’t even really know what she looked like beyond the soft curve of her mouth when she smiled or the vicious white of her teeth when she screamed but she _knows_ her.

Lizzie knows she was kind and hurting and compassionate. Lizzie knows she tried to make her understand and that she never held it against Lizzie when she didn’t. She knows that she kept Lizzie grounded when Josie refused her – when Lizzie was still being too stubborn to help herself, desperate to prove she could handle herself without needing pills to hold her together; desperate to feel _normal –_ to _be_ normal, the way other people so easily were. She knows that she lived in the empty room at the end of the hall, the one Lizzie’s never been in but that reeks of isolation and angsty artist like nothing she’s ever known.

Lizzie knows that in all honesty, she’s probably a large part of the reason she hates Landon – aside from his general ineptitude and the fact that he’s literally the most infuriating person she’s ever met.

(Lizzie knows that’s a lie – mystery girl is probably the true owner of that title, but in her absence Landon and the missing Satan are suitable place-holders.)

Lizzie knows that somehow they only got close when the monsters showed up –

And when Josie left her alone.

-

Life flits on around them; exams coming closer, the end of another school year slowly dawning as the older years prep for graduation and summer vacation.

Rooms slowly empty; students packing up to go home or fly off around the world, eager for adventure, restless at the thought of a vast expanse of colours and wilderness and fun awaiting them outside the gates caging them in.

Everyone makes plans and everyone moves on –

And Lizzie dreams.

-

_A girl in a red top circles her closely, her eyes smile – hot with intensity and her mouth curves; a smile that is oh so demure, so shy. Their palms are barely brushing; heat sizzling between them and frissons of warmth blossoming where their skin ghosts each other. Lizzie is lecturing her, focused as she instructs her – words spilling out thoughtlessly about dance rehearsal and practise, poise and presentation –_

_She takes her hand into hers, wraps an arm around her and loses all sense of self as they step in close together; moving as a seamless unit._

-

_Her eyes are solemn and so sad, her voice measured and every word calculated as she tells MG what to say, Dana’s friend Sasha hovering in front of him; eyes wide and stare vacant as the compulsion sets in._

_It feels like some realisation is dawning; Lizzie’s opinion of her shifting so suddenly, understanding and sympathy flush in her system as she watches her turn tail and walk away._

_The set of her shoulders is rigid._

_Lizzie wants to hold her until she softens._

_Until she smiles._

_Until she laughs._

_Until she realises she’s not as alone as she feels – as she makes herself._

_Lizzie wants to try being her friend again; the same way she’s wanted to all these years – the same way she’s tried and tried; at five and nine and thirteen._

_It won’t happen, she knows, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to try._

_-_

_The necklace shines around Josie’s neck and Lizzie can practically feel the power radiating from it –_ her _power._

_It should freak her out a little, unnerve her that she’s been siphoning from her enough that she can tell what her magic feels like but it doesn’t._

_It just leaves her kind of warm. Her magic is like a hug; the very best kind of hug – strong and soft at the same time, comforting and secure; safe._

_It’s the very opposite of how she feels, looking at the silver singing around Josie’s neck._

_She’s supposed to be grateful, Lizzie reminds herself, that necklace saved Josie’s life. But she doesn’t feel grateful. She doesn’t feel much of anything – just…hollow. A little empty inside, like something has slowly been burrowing inside of her and kicking all of the good stuff out; crafting this empty pit where nothing really breathes._

_Lizzie feels like she can’t breathe._

_She probably isn’t, she thinks, feeling the pain build up in her chest._

_Her sister almost died, her biological mother re-appeared and then got killed by them, she’s been cruelly rejected by the boy she likes at her own birthday party the day after he slept with her and yet, what she’s truly stuck on is this: Josie getting a sweet birthday gift from her and Lizzie being…forgotten._

_Or just ignored._

_She’s not an afterthought – she’s a never-thought and it burns in a way she can’t quite escape._

_-_

_She’s a trigger – a massive, monumental trigger for all of her worst emotions and she doesn’t know why –_

_She just loses all control around her._

_That’s a lie. Lizzie is pretty sure of the reason she’s so worked up about her but it’s not something she’s ready to face._

_The idea that she’s so hung-up on someone who’s never wanted her, who’s never cared about her; who’s always ignored her except when she was lashing out and being cruel –_

_The idea that she’s so hung-up on the girl who outed her mental illness to the school; who told everyone she’s “witch bipolar” disgusts her on a new level._

_Lizzie hates her for it._

_She’ll never forgive her as much as she tries; as much as she talks herself through it, reminds herself that she was hurting, that she’d just lost her parents and anyone in that kind of place would say anything cruel to get rid of people._

_And if that wasn’t enough, if that wasn’t a good enough reason to hate her – well they’ve only piled up._

_She’s not just the girl who outed her; she’s the girl that’s stolen Lizzie’s dad from her; that’s rejected Lizzie every time she’s tried to reach out only to turn to Josie instead of her own volition. She’s the girl who could have everything if she’d only reach out and take it for herself instead of hiding away._

_And Lizzie_ likes _her._

_She’s funny and witty and one of the few people who can keep up with her._

_She’s kind and compassionate and infuriating and a_ hero _–_

_And she’s not afraid of her._

_Lizzie’s isn’t someone she fears or even someone she pities and she likes that about her; likes that she doesn’t care almost as much as it bothers Lizzie not to really matter to her._

_She reaches out in the hallway, passing by on her way to another hero moment securing the urn and there’s a split-second where Lizzie considers saying ‘yes’ when she asks for help._

_She doesn’t really need it; she’s incredibly powerful. Lizzie doubts that she’s even needed the twins’ help blowing up monsters recently, is pretty sure the idea was overkill instead of no-kill when dealing with something so unknown –_

_There’s a buzz of warmth in her stomach at the gesture and Lizzie pauses, lets the feeling sit for a moment before she rejects her._

_There’s a look in her eyes; those big blue ones that blink up at her doe-like; that tells her she’s noticed that pause, that she’s heard so many things in it; that it was_ progress _._

_She nods shortly at Lizzie, almost amused as she disappears around the corner._

_Lizzie tries not to watch her go._

_(She fails.)_

_-_

Lizzie’s been having dreams; horrible nightmares about other worlds that are like theirs but not – one where they’re poor and she’s jealous, one where their school isn’t theirs at all and she’s miserably jealous and another where everything is wrong and Klaus Mikaelson has exposed them. It’s the last that seems to spark fear in her and she clings desperately to Josie the night she wakes from it, sobbing and desperate as she tells Josie how she’d killed her.

It would never happen, Josie knows. Lizzie would kill herself before she ever let something happen to Josie. Lizzie thinks of herself as lesser – as broken – and any attempt would be as much out of self-pity as it would be out of love.

“Who were you jealous of?”

It’s not the question either of them expects and yet it’s the one that’s asked.

Lizzie opens her mouth; steeped in that past emotion, indignant and pauses. It surges up in her – a monumental swell of emotion and yet it drains away just as quickly, that emptiness leaking into her in its stead.

The silence sits between them, a word crawling out of the depths to hiss at her from behind her sister’s shuttered stare.

She prompts Lizzie, hoping the answer is different than she thinks.

It’s not.

-

_You_.

-

Lizzie doesn’t tell Josie everything.

She doesn’t tell Josie about the long hours she’s put in at the library, curled up on one of the couches, her eyes darting between her arduous research and a painting near the fireplace; melancholy and gorgeous.

She doesn’t tell Josie about the hours she spends hiding out in the woods, screaming – or the longer hours she spends there in silence, listening. _(Waiting)_

She doesn’t tell Josie about the ache that fills her chest any time she sees Landon; dark and twisted with jealousy, with indignation and some voice whispering to her the many ways she could send bird-brain into a mid-afternoon nap.

She doesn’t tell Josie about the notes she found in her desk; her own scrawl mingled with carefully placed script – curling elegant letters juxtaposed with the childish nature of the jokes they tell.

She doesn’t tell Josie about the dreams she has; the ones she’s sure must be memories. Of a girl in a swathe of blue, curled into her arms and snuffling soft sobs against her neck, Lizzie’s arms coiled tight around her.

Of that same girl staring at her intently, hands hovering over Lizzie’s as Lizzie talks them through dance steps she already knows; then palm to palm and chest to chest, slowly moving together; the touch slight but so significant after holding themselves apart; the quiet intimacy fostered in just the caress of her hand almost overwhelming.

Of that girl, her voice somehow indiscernible and yet so clear, promising to come back to them; to her.

-

What she does tell Josie is the feeling that comes one day, like a flower unfurling in her chest, light and sweet and tender – tempted into bloom as the sun peeks out from behind the clouds for what feels like the first time in weeks.

Its warmth hides away beneath her breast-bone, limbs slowly crawling across her chest until it curls around every bone, swims inside every vein, lives in every breath.

“What is it?”

_“_ I don’t know…” Lizzie offers quietly, “but it feels like…like _her_ , y’know?”

She pats her chest and Josie reaches for that bond between them, feels it sitting heavily behind her breastbone in the same spot; thrumming with… _something_. It’s full, this feeling, and she marvels at it – at how Lizzie must feel with the real thing in all its vastness dwelling within her. 

It’s almost overwhelming and sifting through it, Josie wonders if it’s not Lizzie’s feelings that she’s been wading through for weeks.

Lizzie is still looking at her, tentative and expectant and Josie bites her lip at the bile that rises in her throat; the crooked coo of jealousy that rolls through her because she _doesn’t_ know. But she _should_ – she _wants_ to.

It should be her feeling all these things – _her_ caring, _her_ missing, _her_ in love – and the fact that she’s not; that Lizzie is the one wrapped up in her emotions, that Lizzie is the one tied so irrevocably to a girl that Josie doesn’t think she should know _burns_.

She’s angry – so angry – and bitter in such a familiar way. It feels like she’s thirteen again and Lizzie is swanning off with another person she’d liked but never found the courage to say. It feels like _mine_ hissed between her breaths and sharp on her tongue; cutting in a way she only wishes were literal – sharp enough to cut all these bonds Lizzie’s made.

-

“Yeah,” she imagines saying and pictures the light in Lizzie’s eyes flickering.

“Of course I do,” she sees the happiness, the shy blossom of emotion ripped out and torched down; sees Lizzie wilt beside her and finds the words caught in her throat.

She imagines all the things she could say to ruin it; to make obvious that what Lizzie feels is not special, not _hers_ the way she probably hopes it is –

And something in her recoils violently.

_Why would you do that?_ a voice asks her, and Josie’s eyes burn.

Lizzie looks at her, soft and concerned, the tears so sudden they seem to startle them both.

She reaches out for Josie, wraps her up in a hug and hums to her the way Josie always does for Lizzie.

Josie sobs.

-

_Why would you do that?_

She doesn’t know.

-

_We will find her._

_She’s alive._

_Everything will be fine._

-

They stop talking about her.

Or rather, they stop talking about her _with each other_.

Lizzie is still abuzz with the idea of her, with this tender connection that tethers her to some far-off ghost; to this feeling that haunts her in her dreams and Josie can see it in her – can feel the stirrings of it in her own chest through their bond.

But it’s muffled now; like Lizzie’s caught it in a cage and closed it inside of herself; it presses against the bars and the barest bits of it come through, but nothing so overwhelming as before.

Lizzie doesn’t talk to her about mystery girl no matter how much it looks like it’s killing her – and Josie is so grateful for it. For her.

Because the less Lizzie talks, the less Josie hurts for it – the more the feeling of _mine_ , the strange possessiveness, the dark call of emotion drift away. She settles back into herself – a better version than before; one that can say no, one that can stand on her own and doesn’t lurk behind her twin. One who’ll take the spotlight because she wants to; who won’t shy away from wanting things or being wanted.

There’s no strange guilt accompanying her needs; there’s no deference to her twin, no stifled wants in Lizzie’s favour. Lizzie has a voice just the same as Josie does; and Josie’s learning to use hers the way her twin always has.

There’s no shame in her feelings now – she’s just Josie, and she’s happy that way.

As long as the girl isn’t mentioned.

As long as Lizzie doesn’t talk about her.

As long as it all stays unsolved and mystery girl is just that; a mystery.

-

It doesn’t stay unsolved.

The months have dragged on; the new school year has started, Christmas has come and gone and spring is quick to dance into their lives in a blur of daffodils and bird songs.

It’s nearing March; the sun finally warm again, the air fresh but not crisp – and in a blur of disaster the Mikaelsons roar into town.

The boundary spell is obliterated; the school is in chaos and the full wrath of the Mikaelsons is hurried into their dad’s office after a hail of stakes and spells are batted fruitlessly aside.

Nobody knows why they’re here but something tugs at Lizzie – something vibrant and rich – it pushes passed all her attempts to confine it, buzzes into Josie’s system and rattles her brain; sticking in her lungs until she can’t help but breathe it in –

_Hope_ , the Mikaelsons demand, _Where’s Hope?_

Lizzie’s chest jolts; Josie’s heart lurches and the name rings in their ears – their bond humming as wave after wave of emotion crashes into them – reverberating and echoing between them; in a constant loop of feedback.

_Hope_ , Lizzie’s whole being seems to sing.

_It’s her – it’s Hope_.

_It’s_ her _,_ she seems to sigh between them; affectionate and wistful and delighted.

The image of blue eyes forms in Josie’s mind; sad and soft and she sees it truly for the first time – the girl their gaze was pinned on; the curl of her twin’s blonde hair, the reflection of the sun glinting over her skin; the way that gaze was returned.

Something coils and tightens in her chest; childish and wounded and Josie wilts, sad and dread-ridden.

It’s her, she knows.

It’s Hope.

**Author's Note:**

> This feels a little incomplete - and I might in all honesty come back to it at some point and make it a two parter - but I'm gonna leave it a one-shot for now.
> 
> But let me know what you think!


End file.
